I think the money spent on this game reflects more on the quality and reputation of Bioware and not the concept of DLC in general.

Most DLC is a ripoff in my opinion. I totally agree. We all know about the Horse Armor BS and all the worst of DLC.

I'm generally sick of the whole dragons and wizards and medieval fantasy genre. But virtually every game Bioware has made has been quality gaming so I bought Dragon Age on that alone. Like the previous poster mentioned. I'm a grown-up with a job and responsibilities and my gaming budget has dropped significantly. With the exception of Dragon Age and the Mass Effect games, I've been strictly bargain bin for over a year now.

But you know what they say about opinions. You probably absolutely love a game that I despise so whatever man. Why do you care what other people buy? I mean sure, a lot of the things you can "buy" on XBL is ridiculous, themes, gamer pics, etc. But so what?

Gamers aren't afraid of DD. They just want some sort of guarantee that the company they bought a game from isn't going to pull a fast one and say fuck you and not host a certain game anymore.

We've all been told the story of the "promise" that Steam made about how if they ever go out of business, they'd release a crack that lets people play their games without Steam. What exactly is preventing them from saying, "oh yeah, that..well we changed our minds" Or even if the company has honorable intentions of taking care of their consumers. What happens in some sort of catastrophic event and the company loses all their records of who bought what? Or what is preventing that company from being bought out by another company and THAT company says renegs on the "promise"

There is nothing really preventing some company from just going "too bad, guess you'll have to buy our new version all over again"

DD will eventually take over and become the primary means of getting games and software. There is no doubt about that. It's just a question of when. But it would all go a lot smoother if there is some sort of guarantee that a game we purchased through DD will still be honored 10 years from now..or longer. As long as I take care of my retail copies (and find some way of playing them on newer OS's or keep old hardware around) I can still use the data.

Cut the bullshit, Nintendo. I suppose the PS3 price cuts weren't influenced by the success of the 360 and the Wii either. Companies just lower prices spontaneously out of the goodness of their heart, right?

The Wii doesn't exist in a vacuum.

Remember when the gaming community called Sony out on their PR bullshit and they were making one stupid statement after another about the PS3? No one believed that nonsense either.

Sadly, I just can't trust any company these (not just EA) to faithfully bring back Wing Commander as we recognize it.

I still remember the dummies that thought that just because WC: Arena had this awesome manual that reminiscent of the old WC, that that was somehow a guarantee that Arena was going to be good.

How many times do we have to get burned before we finally realize that game companies no longer cater to people like us who want deep, complex games. It's not that these games aren't profitable, it's because the game doesn't have mass appeal.

So if this means a new WC game is on the way, you can bet your ass it's going to be another dumbed down game like Arena. The sad thing is that WC really wasn't that complex of a space sim game. Compared to Tie Fighter and Freespace, WC was really quite simple. But even by today's standards, that's too complex for today's crowd.

This is exactly while a Mech game needs to be at least partially based on player skill and not 100 percent based on stats. Hits/misses, where the shot hit, criticals, piloting rolls and all that should definitely be stat based. But as the old MUSH and MUSE games have taught us, the only skill levels necessary are green/regular/veteran/elite/legendary. Other than that, the game should be based entirely on the players wits and tactics as any mech game should be.

Sure you can dump some newb in a Daishi, but if he doesn't have a solid grasp of tactics and plays the game like it's just another shooter, he's going to get his ass handed to him by a veteran pilot in a much smaller mech. I want a game that, yes, is primarily based on stats and die rolls, but I don't just want some fucking spreadsheet in space. The player's(not the character's) intuition, wits, tactics and strategy need to be involved.

And sure, a newbie might start out with something like a piece of shit locust or something like that, but I really don't want to encourage the bigger=better mentality. speed is crazy important in the battletech universe and stomping around in an assult usually just means you're a sitting duck, sure you might be able to fend off a few attacks here and there, but eventually, they'll peck away at you and you're dead meat. You have to know when to retreat, which isn't really taught in games these days. Lone Wolf syndrome will get you killed pretty fast in a mech.

:is using 64 bit Vista at work. We still have some old 16 bit legacy apps, but it's easy to make a virtual 32 bit XP machine or to remote into a 32 bit server to run those apps

Now if Adobe would just make a 64 bit version of flash. I know it's a minor app so it's definitely not a deal breaker, but it just annoys me that they haven't done it yet.

IMO the biggest hurdle is convincing my coworkers, fellow IT people mind you, that we need to start preparing for 64 bit. It's so fucking annoying when I find out that fellow coworkers who are supposed IT professionals either don't know that 32 bit is nearing it's end of life or they make the argument that no one needs more than 4GB of ram right now, therefore, we don't have to do anything about it.

I think a lot of my coworkers think we should go to 32 bit Win7 in a year or so...then later go to 64 bit. I say let's start going to 64 bit sooner rather than later. rip that bandaid off quick even if we really don't need it. I really don't want to have to rebuild someone's Operating system just to give them a memory upgrade.

Well I suppose I need to pull an Obama and apologize for using the word stupid. Ignorant and lazy would be more accurate.

If you got money burning a hole in your pocket, you're less likely to do some reading and find out which components give you high performance for low cost. You're just going to save yourself the headache and overspend "just in case" You don't need a ton of money for a good gaming computer. But again, the video card companies would have us believe you need a liquid cooled SLI configuration.

Sure, even a budget gaming PC costs more than console, but you're going to get a lot more out of it.

The thing is though. I really don't think of PC gaming dying. It's just been morphed. Consoles have become more and more PC-like over the years. The ability to be networked with other computers, Internet access, downloadable add-ons. If consoles continue to dominate, there will be increased demand to open things up a bit to allow for more third party peripherals, mod support, etc.

So PC gaming isn't dead, Consoles have just turned into PCs In truth though, depending on how you look at it. This is what gamers have wanted for a long time. For a long time, we've wanted some form of streamlining the platform, standardizing it a bit so that developers don't have so many obstacles. I remember people complaining that no one has yet made an Operating system optimized for gaming, none of the bloatware that comes with your typical OS robbing us of performance. For long time, people have been clamoring for a way to simplify hardware so that it took less time to develop on and less bugs. Well that's what consoles are. Consoles are only going to get more advanced, not just in raw computing power, but in the addition of features. They're going to HAVE to open it up at some point to allow for customization

My only real beef with consoles is what others have already alluded to. The continual lowering of standards in games. The lack of depth and challenge. But that sort of thing is not completely exclusive to consoles.

The key to stopping this bullshit is to stop buying console games on day one, wait a month, 6 months is even better.

As much as I prefer PC gaming. That just simply will never happen. The tide has already turned. As long as there are PCs, there will always be games for it. It's just that consoles are dominant now and will remain dominant until something better comes along.

Maybe if the prices for video cards were to drop substantially for example. 200 bucks USED to net you the top of the line video card not too long ago. The stupid thing is that 200 bucks will still net you a perfectly adequate video card for PC gaming, but it's just that the video card companies have succeeded in convincing the public that you're not really a gamer unless you drop at LEAST triple that for a video card. Not to mention SLI/Crossfire and the nonsense we went through not too long ago where they tried to get us to buy separate physics cards

You also can't deny that developing for a single hardware configuration is way easier and cheaper than developing for the infinite PC variations out there.

If consumers were the least bit discerning and did their homework. We wouldn't be in this mess. But always bet on stupid. People just throwing down a wad of cash instead of doing their homework on what will get them the most bang for their buck. So when it boils down to that. spend a couple grand on a PC or spend 400 on a console? hrm, not exactly rocket science there.

you know, I really hate it when people do the whole "I called it" nonsense. Claiming they have some clairvoyance into what games will suck and which will be good..etc.

That said...

The instant I saw that demo video with the Jedi with the anger management issues and the over the top force powers, I knew this game was going to be ass and cater only to the lowest common denominator.

Then I found out that Lucas himself had some direct involvement in the game. That only made matters worse.

Is everyone still happy that gaming went mainstream and we have to cater to people who obviously like this crap? Personally, I miss the days when gaming was a niche nerd hobby and it wasn't about huge production budgets

No, I didn't even bother reading the article, because it's always the same ole shit. No one ever points the finger at the real culprit, Greed and laziness.

It's the quest for money that has decided that consoles are cheaper and more profitable. It's the quest for money that has decided why make a complex game to a niche crowd when you can make a simple game for the masses. You can't exactly get a publisher to be straight about something like that so the excuse always given is "PIRACY PIRACY!!! ABLOO BLOO BLOO!!! I could have been even richer than I already am, and I would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for those meddling pirates!!

Your purchasing habits are nothing but anecdotal evidence. "I buy only PC games, therefore PC gaming is not in decline" A does not lead to B, son. Look, I prefer PC gaming. I only play consoles because that's where the games are going. Sure many games come out on both consoles and PC, but for the most part, it's always pretty obvious that one platform was given more attention than the other, and that's usually the console platform so the game usually just plays better on the console. Mass Effect being one of the exceptions to that rule, however.

But seriously, this article is good for nothing than to stoke the PC v Console fanboi wars. This mentality that one is obviously better than the other does nothing but soothe the fragile egos of people who feel they need to justify their purchases.

Be the better person, go where the games go. Fuck the platform. I play both PC and Console and I love both, but it's obvious where things are heading and if you're ever in doubt all you have to do to learn the truth is to follow the fucking money.

The reason PC games are dying is because the whole gaming industry went mainstream.

Why develop for the infinite variations of PCs out there when you can develop for a small, finite, number of platforms and save a lot of money?

If a company gets bigger and bigger, they demand more profits, which means niche genres that made money, but not ENOUGH money get axed.

Piracy is not the issue, never has, never will be. It's just a convenient scapegoat. No one really wants piracy to go away, or else DRM companies would be out of a job. There wouldn't be a boogeyman to scare publishers into buying the biggest, most annoying DRM out there. Piracy is cost of doing business. If it can be built up, someone will inevitably tear it down. That's life. So piracy is not an acceptable excuse for why PC gaming is in decline. When the next evolution in gaming occurs that replaces consoles, I'm sure people will blame piracy for the "death of consoles" too. Like I said, Piracy is just a convenient excuse.

The problem with the Mechwarrior 4/3 stats is that they only made a difference for the AI. Which was stupid regardless of whether it was green or elite. So it really made NO difference at all. No battle I can think of was ever decided based upon whether I brought a rookie along or a vet, But it should

But otherwise you're exactly right. Almost every mech game I can think of has always been about emphasising that the heaviest mech was ALWAYS the best mech which runs so completely counter to what Battletech was about.

Battletech was always about superior tactics, strategy, and out-thinking your opponent, not superior firepower and circle strafing. Almost chess-like if you will medium mechs could almost always beat a heavy mech if you had a skilled pilot facing an overconfident foe. I've played and liked all the MW games, but there has been this slow, constant progression towards making it into an action shooter. Screw that. I agree that Battletech should have a real-time, in the cockpit, perspective because resolving the old tabletop games was tedious and boring. But I want the feel of a heavily strategic game back. The MU* ASCII text art games had the perfect mix between real time action and table-top rpg mechanics. We need a game that updates that!

Building mech loadouts in the games was always about exploiting some shooter game mechanic. My memory is fuzzy, but wasn't MW2 all about who had the most small pulse lasers loaded or something like that? It became formulaic.

Its EXTREMELY unlikely we will ever see a remake of the tie fighter or x-wing games in the forseeable future. One issue that I hadn't thought of that someone brought up earlier was the whole joystick thing, that a lot of people nowadays dont have one, and its much harder to find one. So they'd have to develope a mouse control scheme and that would upset a lot of people.

I call bullshit. There is the XBOX gamepad and it rocks. I think you could make a good X-Wing game based on that controller.

Agreed, we already had a "discussion" on how relevant joysticks were to the death of the sim genre in the last thread and I also call bullshit on the argument. The joystick issue is just a convenient excuse and can be translated to: "we don't think we'll make enough money so we won't take the risk." People act like needing an extra peripheral is the kiss of death, which is ridiculous.